As February's release of Horizon: Forbidden West draws nearer, Guerrilla has updated fans on some of the new abilities that players will be able to utilize across combat and exploration in the game, including a grapple and glider, as well as some fun new combat techniques.

In a post focusing on traversal published on the PlayStation Blog, Guerrilla spoke further about some of the new tools that players will have, as well as factors that have influenced Forbidden West's new combat decisions. Lead Systems Designer David McMullen explained that a new high vault mechanic "essentially allows Aloy to hoist herself on top of any object of jumpable height with room to pull up. Combined with the ability to free climb and adding grapples to our environment, the potential for exploration is greatly increased.”

He also explained more about the Pullcaster and Shieldwing, two new tools shown off back in June. The Pullcaster is multi-function, and primarily works much like you'd expect a grapplehook in a game to function. However, it has a second function as a winch, which means "the player can dynamically manipulate, move and destroy the objects in the environments," according to McMullen. "Think about pulling a hidden loot chest from a ledge, or tearing open a vent to create a new climb path,” he adds.

McMullen also explained that the additions to climbing and traversal mechanics can be mixed up with Aloy's new Shieldwing glider. "The Shieldwing combines well with numerous other mechanics both in and out of combat, such as landing on your mount, ziplining, the strike from above skill, and more…”

Elsewhere in the blog post, the studio discussed the changes it's making to combat. Guerrilla has completely redesigned Horizon's skill tree and included workbenches that allow players a greater degree of customization when upgrading weapons.

As well as changing the way that players modify their weapons to suit a given playstyle, the studio is also bringing melee and ranged combat closer together. Guerrilla’s Lead Combat Designer, Dennis Zopfi, offered an example of how the two aspects worth together in Forbidden West's combat system: "A new example of a skill that does this is the Resonator Blast, where you charge up the spear with melee hits and when fully powered up, the energy can be placed on enemies (humans and machines alike) and followed up with a projectile – resulting in a big damaging explosion!’"

In Horizon Zero Dawn, Aloy will have a number of her old weapons back to fight off the various enemies and machines that the game throws at her. Zopfi states that Forbidden West will look to give these weapons a "stronger personality" allowing players to players to draw upon their strengths in given situations. New weapons will be added, too, such as the Spike Thrower, which was teased by Zopfi as being a "new, high damage weapon which, when thrown at the right moment, makes it easier to hit larger targets."

For more on Horizon Forbidden West, make sure to check out this article discussing how Aloy's new gear will provide the character with a range of new skills.

Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.

Rockstar has revealed the PC system requirements for Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition and, surprise surprise, they're not that demanding. This is a remaster of games from the PS2 era, after all.

Despite their spruce up, with lovely new textures and lighting effects, the new versions of GTA will only require 2-3GB of graphics memory at minimum, with 4GB recommended. It's also looking for a relatively modest CPU, although still asks for the usual 8-16GB of RAM. We also have a file size: 45GB for the whole trilogy. It's currently unclear if the install can be split across the three games.

The full PC system requirements are:

Minimum system requirements

• OS: Windows 10 64-bit
• Processor: Intel Core i5-6600K / AMD FX-6300
• Memory: 8GB
• Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 760 2GB / AMD Radeon R9 280 3GB
• Disk: 45GB

Recommended system requirements

• OS: Windows 10 64-bit
• Processor: Intel Core i7-2700K / AMD Ryzen 5 2600
• Memory: 16GB
• Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 4GB / AMD Radeon RX 570 4GB
• Disk: 45GB

Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition was announced earlier this month, and is set to launch on November 11. They will replace the original versions, as they have been removed from digital storefronts.

Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer.

Sony has confirmed that the upcoming God of War PC port will be handled by Canadian studio Jetpack Interactive. The company previously provided engineer support for Dark Souls' PC version.

In a statement provided to ArsTechnica, Sony said that original God of War developer Sony Santa Monica is overseeing the PC version's development, which is being handled by Jetpack Interactive. The studio, based in Vancouver, is a port-focused developer who has previously worked with EA on Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare 2, and NBA Live 15 and 14. It also completed the PS4 port duties on Orcs Must Die! Unchained for Robot Entertainment.

The choice of Jetpack Interactive may come as a surprise, since Sony acquired PC port specialist Nixxes earlier this year. The deal was only announced in July, though, so if the God of War PC version has been in development for a while, that may be the reason Jetpack and not Nixxes are handling the port. We expect Nixxes to be involved in further projects, though, since Sony has made a commitment to bring PlayStation games to PC.

The God of War PC version was announced this month, and will bring PS4's smash hit to computers via Steam and the Epic Games Store. It'll no doubt prove popular on PC, as we gave it a full 10/10 review and later made it our 2018 game of the year. Recently, voters in a series of IGN polls named it the best video game of all time.

Matt Purslow is IGN's UK News and Entertainment Writer.

You can get Funko Pop figures and other toys with tremendous discounts for one day only in the latest Amazon Deal of the Day sale. This includes discounts on Star Wars, Marvel, Transformers, and more.

But, with this being a limited time sale, you don't have much time to spare, so head on over the sale now to see what's on offer (see here). Or, to make things easier for you, we've found the absolute best deals in the sale, and have listed them just below, check them out.

Funko Pop Deals: Star Wars, Marvel, and More

Action Figure and More Deals: Transformers, DC, Ghostbusters

4400's premiere, "Past Is Prologue," airs on The CW on Oct. 25, 2021.

When influencer Gabby Petito went missing last month, activists asked why so much more attention was paid to the disappearance of a young white woman than the cases of missing people of color. That conflict is at the heart of 4400, The CW’s reboot of the 2004 USA Network series The 4400 about 4400 missing people who spontaneously reappear together. But the earnest effort to reframe the plot as a racial justice narrative gets off to a rough start thanks to clunky dialogue and an attempt to introduce far too many characters.

“Past Is Prologue” starts out pretty similarly to the original series, though the 4400 fall out of the sky in a Detroit park instead of all appearing in a ball of light in Seattle. In both cases they’re rounded up by Department of Homeland Security agents, who soon discover the returned can be traced to missing persons cases spanning decades and that they seemingly haven’t aged since they disappeared.

The CW’s version features a primarily Black cast, explicitly depicting all of the missing people as marginalized or undervalued in their times. But the show’s seemingly tiny budget gets in the way of its efforts to make the political points it’s striving for. The original series provided a commentary on the growing security state following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack, examining the American government’s fear of threats within its borders and the ways people might seek any chance of empowerment in a chaotic world. In its pilot, the 4400 are quickly processed and imprisoned, the characters largely introduced in institutional uniforms.

In the new version, they’re oddly stashed in a shabby hotel lobby and left in their own clothes without any significant medical examinations. This is despite the fact that it’s a post-COVID show, with their guards wearing masks seemingly just to make them more ominous while the protagonists can show their faces and wear their period-appropriate attire in a thin attempt to help us keep track of the huge ensemble. The series clearly wants to evoke the sentiments and imagery of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, but there are too few guards, and the ones there lack body armor or heavy weaponry. This might be required for some future plot point, but it feels sloppy and disingenuous. Also adding to the weakness of the setting is the fact that while it’s set in Detroit, it’s filmed in Chicago. The mismatch prevents a real establishment of place.

Even worse is the dialogue. Rather than take the time to introduce all the primary characters slowly, 4400’s writers have rushed to try to jam in as many as possible in the pilot. The result leaves them largely feeling like thin archetypes constantly shouting their backstories at anyone who will listen. They’re regularly making it clear what times they come from in the most unsubtle ways possible, such as noting the last thing they remember was watching Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls, or asking if ragtime is still a popular musical genre.

The most attention is given to Shanice (Brittany Adebumola), a lawyer who disappeared from 2005 on her first day back from maternity leave. Adebumola does a solid job of portraying believable panic and grief as she desperately tries to get back to the life she left behind, but it makes the placid attitudes of the other 4400 feel ludicrous by comparison. The only other detainee who even puts up much of a protest is party girl LaDonna (Khailah Johnson), and that just comes off as an awful stereotype as all she actually wants is her phone back.

While members of the 4400 might really want to share their stories with each other given the shocking situation they find themselves in, it’s really inexplicable for their caretakers, parole officers Jharrel Mateo (Joseph David-Jones) and Keisha (Ireon Roach), who dump their tragic motivations on each other the first time they meet for drinks. While the show is clearly trying to go for the same partners-with-conflicting-styles dynamic as the original’s Tom Baldwin (Joel Gretsch) and Diana Skouris (Jacqueline McKenzie), which itself was a riff on The X-Files’ Mulder and Scully, the intimacy between those agents was forged over the course of numerous intense episodes rather than a single conversation.

Like in the original, some of the returned discover they’ve come back with superpowers. Most notably, ‘50s civil rights activist and preacher’s wife Claudette (Jaye Ladymore) discovers she can regenerate from wounds. Watching her enlist others to help her experiment with her abilities is charming, but as LaDonna’s exasperated comments that she’s locked up with a member of the X-Men indicate, this isn’t exactly an original ability. The 4400 broke from traditional superhero archetypes with a focus on powers that were more likely to change the course of the entire world rather than being useful in a fight, setting that standard early with characters with prophetic visions and the ability to heal others. For all its political ambitions, it would be a shame if 4400 was lacking that same vision for its speculative fiction.